What does canadian car accidents have to do with bernie? That's like adding 2 + 2 and coming up with negative pi.

Their healthcare model has been touted by Bernine supporters as an example to be followed, that's what it has to do with Bernie. I asked how his model would differ from Canadian and how would it handle the situations similar to the one described in the article. Apparently, Canadian so-called "universal" so-called "healthcare" is not handling them very well, despite all the praise showered on it from the left in the US. So this is a legitimate question.

I still don’t understand your legitimate question. Can you try and pose it as an actual question, please?

Read the linked article about Canadians not able to get proper care after a car accident. Is or is not Canadian healthcare still considered a model to follow? How would Bernie's proposed system handle these situations?

I still don’t understand your legitimate question. Can you try and pose it as an actual question, please?

Read the linked article about Canadians not able to get proper care after a car accident. Is or is not Canadian healthcare still considered a model to follow? How would Bernie's proposed system handle these situations?

As someone who had to deal with American healthcare and insurance after being nearly killed by a drunk driver in a car accident, I can’t imagine it being any worse a situation in Canada. I know Canada doesn’t treat losers that drink with the little kid gloves that they do in America. Americans convicted of a DUI aren’t even allowed into Canada.

I still don’t understand your legitimate question. Can you try and pose it as an actual question, please?

Read the linked article about Canadians not able to get proper care after a car accident. Is or is not Canadian healthcare still considered a model to follow? How would Bernie's proposed system handle these situations?

How is your situation currently handled here in the states?

What is your fear of how it would be handled differently under Bernies proposed system?

They've been paying into medicare there entire working life. It's not free cake once they're 65 and over.

It is if the paid cost of services rendered largely exceed the payments, which they - unfortunately - do. It's called healthcare inflation and it is one of the most rampant forms which you won't find in any government inflation report (insurance payments alone are useless to measure inflation precisely for the reason that there is forward debt created for future generations when the paid cost of services exceeds payments). Its definitely less free than starting out young millenials on free health care, but it is still a form of free.

How much did the employer and employee pay into the system during that time? How many boomers die before using that amount for their healthcare?

Boomers built up a surplus, because their payments were supporting a smaller population. Once gen Xers are supporting boomers, the surplus will be depleted, and there will be a medicare debt. It's pretty clear that their payments will not completely cover expenses. There are two reasons that a SS system that worked well for many years will eventually stop working as it currently is (1) health care costs are rising faster than wages and (2) the population is not growing as fast as it used to be, and population growth is a big part of what has kept payments as low as they have been over the years.

Something has to change to make health care more affordable. Rationing in one form or another is what is going to do it. One option is for the gov to provide it for the masses, but limit what is covered or what can be billed anyway. Another option is to keep a private system, limit what the poor and middle class can afford to buy/use, continue to bankrupt middle class people who become sick, and keep people dependent on big corporations who have bargaining power with insurance companies.

If any Republicans are for govt. involvement in healthcare,they should be tried & executed.Their SOCIALISM will destroy America. Republicans should be removed from their SOCIALIST Security,Medicare & all their other govt. teats.It's so sad to see Americans having to pay taxes to carry this slime.

If any Republicans are for govt. involvement in healthcare,they should be tried & executed.Their SOCIALISM will destroy America. Republicans should be removed from their SOCIALIST Security,Medicare & all their other govt. teats.

The question is vague, and you will understand that if you attempt to answer it. My post was good, because it gets right to the primary problem with medicare and SS at the moment. Here are the same two points direct from the horse's mouth: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/Why don't you tell us how much boomers paid into the system. Go ahead and put it on a per person basis, and also tell us how much their average expected benefits are over their retirement. Their benefits will be much greater than what they put in, so go ahead and calculate the net present value of payments and benefits using the government borrowing rate, say 10 yr treasury bonds.

I had never heard this until you posted this. I looked it up and technically/legally, you are correct.

They certainly don't enforce this though, seemingly at all. I've know people personally and a lot of friends of friends that do fishing trips up to Canada every summer. I know of at least 5 guys that have been going up there annually, all of them with DUI convictions in the last 5 years (I just said I know them, they're not my friends). They didn't do anything extra to get across and had zero issue. I think I know of one group trip where at least 3 out of about 12 guys had a DUI recently before going.

And maybe this is just because fishing tourism is a pretty good profit source for Canada and their economy. A TON of Mid-Western's go up there in the summer, I'd venture to guess 10-20% of those that go have had a DUI in the last 10 years. I seriously wonder if this is enforced at all or if it's a profiling tool.

Medicare for all is totally incompatible with the tax cuts that are in progress. IMO, the main purpose of the tax cut is to starve gov, and further the need to cut programs.

Wow. It didn't take long to have this proven correct. Paul Ryan is already talking about slashing entitlements in 2018. To be clear, he is talking about cutting the social security and medicare benefits that poor and working class folks have contributed into all of their lives in order to retroactively fund tax cuts that will go mostly to the wealthier people.

To be clear, he is talking about cutting the social security and medicare benefits that poor and working class folks have contributed into all of their lives in order to retroactively fund tax cuts that will go mostly to the wealthier people.

That's what do called entitlement programs are. It's not controversial. Just search the net or check Wikipedia, which has a link to an editorial by Paul Ryan where he refers to ss and Medicare as entitlements.

That's what do called entitlement programs are. It's not controversial. Just search the net or check Wikipedia, which has a link to an editorial by Paul Ryan where he refers to ss and Medicare as entitlements.

Since we didn't put SS in a lock box it has all been spent already. But it's still owed by the US government. Not seeing how they would go about abandoning this IOU but not saying they won't.

When pushed, the Republicans are already admitting that they are going to do this. They are not advertising it at the moment, because they want less pushback on the tax cuts.

The SS/Medicare fund has collected more than it paid out, and the general fund spent the money. I don't know if they literally issued the fund a treasury note, but that is effectively what happened. When the SS/Medicare starts withdrawing the money, there will be more pressure on the treasury sales. The gov will have to sell more bonds to raise funds to pay the general fund bills and pay back the SS/Medicare fund. That will put more pressure on interest rates and drive them up. The tax cuts will exacerbate that problem. When rates start going up, it will create a problem that will be addressed by cutting nominal benefits. Rather than nominal cuts, they will stop increasing benefits at the rate of inflation, which will be higher than now for the reason that I already stated. The Republicans need to start now to achieve the real (inflation adjusted) cuts that they will need later. The pain will be felt, but they can deny that they made actual cuts, because nominal benefits will remain the same.

That's true. That's why the Republicans love the term so much. They can say that they are going to cut entitlements, and lots of people think that they are referring to welfare that those 'entitled lazies' are receiving. However, the big money is in cutting social security and medicare, and that is what they intend to cut. However, if they repeated over and over that they were going to cut social security and medicare, they would lose elections, so that repeat over and over that they are going to cut taxes and slash 'entitlements'.

This whole question came up because I said that the government will come after social security and medicare, and I mentioned that Paul Ryan was recently talking about slashing entitlements. So, for the purposes of this conversation, we can define it the same way that Paul Ryan and the other Republicans define it. It refers to all payments that people are entitled to, whether because they paid into the plan (e.g. social security and medicare) or because they are poor and qualify based on lack of income (e.g. food stamps).

As an aside, the word entitlement doesn't work as well for welfare and food stamps, because you have to assume that a minimum standard of living is a basic right that people are entitled to. It works much better for programs that people paid into, because they have an obvious right to get something in return as the government promised.

As an aside, the word entitlement doesn't work as well for welfare and food stamps, because you have to assume that a minimum standard of living is a basic right that people are entitled to.

No, that's exactly the definition of entitlement, as it relates to welfare, because people feel they're entitled to those benefits, just because, doesn't matter if they paid in to them or not. Who said that a minimum standard of living is a basic right and should be given away for free?

and I mentioned that Paul Ryan was recently talking about slashing entitlements. So, for the purposes of this conversation, we can define it the same way that Paul Ryan and the other Republicans define it.

You can define it any way you want, it doesn't make it true.

Once you jump the shark saying medicare and S.S. is an entitlement, because you're collecting something from the government (even those you were forced/taxed into paying it), where does it end?

Is it an entitlement to collect on your homeowners insurance when your house burns down?Is it an entitlement to collect on your auto insurance if you total your car?Is it an entitlement to collect on your health insurance if you have a heart transplant?Is it an entitlement to collect on your life insurance if you die early?

In each one of those cases, you could collect more than you paid in. That would be exactly what you stated about medicare, that beneficiaries will collect more than they paid in.

The government specified what you had to pay into medicare while you were working, you didn't have the option to tailor your payments based on what you wanted to pay, like you could with all your other insurances. So saying medicare is an entitlement when you collect it, is just nonsense.

Is it an entitlement to collect on your homeowners insurance when your house burns down?Is it an entitlement to collect on your auto insurance if you total your car?Is it an entitlement to collect on your health insurance if you have a heart transplant?Is it an entitlement to collect on your life insurance if you die early?

Yes, one is entitled to collect money for all of those things.People often used the word to describe someone who feels entitled to something when they haven't earned it. You seem stuck on that use, but the word clearly means that someone does have a legal or moral right to something.

In politics, the phrase 'entitlement programs' definitely refers to social security and medicare as well as other programs. Are you really claiming that it doesn't?

Here is an intelligent and well-articulated opinion from Seeking Alpha:

by Lance Brofman:

"The USA spends about twice as much per person on health care as other developed countries. However, the prices paid by Americans or their insurance carriers for medical procedures are typically about triple what is paid in other developed countries. Hence, Americans consume less health care services than their foreign counterparts. Obamacare did not seriously address the price problem and would thus only exacerbated the problem.

Government spending has been increasingly driven by medical care prices. Government pays half of the costs of health care in the USA. When the tax spending aspects of the tax deductibility and exclusions of medical care and insurance expenses are included, the impact of health care costs on the deficits is even larger. In many respects, the health care price crisis in uniquely American. Our Government spending on healthcare per capita exceeds that of any other country in the world, including those where there is very little private health care expenditures.

Adopting the second worst healthcare system in the world, Canada, Germany and the UK are probable the best candidates for that dubious honor, would allow the USA to eliminate much of the Federal budget deficit. That would probably be beneficial to financial markets. See: The Market Multiple On The S&P 500 Can Be Explained: P/E Ratios Are Inversely Related To Future Federal Spending https://seekingalpha.c...

Being the second worst healthcare system after the USA, is like being the second worst nuclear accident in the last decade after Fukushima. There probably was another nuclear accident where a few people were injured in the last decade, but none comes to mind immediately..."

People often used the word to describe someone who feels entitled to something when they haven't earned it. You seem stuck on that use, but the word clearly means that someone does have a legal or moral right to something.

In the majority of cases and uses of the word Entitled, it references getting something that wasn't earned. That definitely holds true with children, Millennials and other special groups (Sanders and Obama voters).

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